artificial sweetners

I'd heard all that before about the sweeteners. Then I one day, I found myself thinking....."Hmmm... you know--- babies are sweet...."  Ever since then, I have been putting powdered children on my Cheerios. Thanks for the warnings! Anyone who's interested can email me for a recipe.

LOL -- only you Shari could come up with a response like that.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that since there is the obvious potential for harm (chlorocarbons are harmful.  this has been proven.), what is the point in putting this in your system?  Also, what is the point in saying that you are going to choose the lesser of two evils when you don't even need to do that (when you have natural sweetners like stevia and other natural ways of getting sweets without refined sugar, like eating fruit)?  Like it was already pointed out, though, you just need to research the topics for yourself and make choices you are comfortable making.  I just wanted to bring up the artificial sweetner topic to put it out there, not to start a debate.  The current feeling on splenda is that it's gold in a packet and better than sliced bread compared to saccharin and aspartame.  I'm by no means a conspiracy theorist, but I am a scientist.  by practice, I think critically about what I hear and read and base my decisions on thoughtful research.  Anyway, enjoy your sweets any way you see fit. 

Hi Julie, What would you say consitutes too much consumption?  My little sister cannot consume any artificial sweeteners -- she gets massive headaches from them.  She tries to lose weight and she has a hard time because most things that she would like to eat have artificial sweeteners of one form or another in them.  I have to say I would probably be okay if I cut artificial sweeteners out of my life.  I only use 1 packet of splenda in my coffee 3 mornings a week.  I drink diluted crystal lite for dinner -- the rest of the day I drink water.  And I eat a NSA fudgesicle for snack at the end of the day.  Oh, and I eat sugar free jello pudding. For the most part I choose whole foods.  I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't eat anything that hasn't lived at one point.  okay, so I'm not always an angel. LOL But again, what is too much?

"too much" is subjective to the individual person.  Like MSG in foods, some people have no reaction to it, others get sick with just the smallest dose of it.  I am sure that the numbers for splenda are huge...you probably need a large quantity to see immediate negative effects, the key word being immediate.   You should suggest Stevia to your sister.  Stevia is actually a plant whose leaves contain a naturally occuring molecule called steviol, which offers a sweet flavor.  It isn't chemically manufactured by a lab, but is instead made naturally in the leaves of the stevia plant. I'm not trying to say that nature does it right every time...as i said earlier, apple seeds contain cyanide, and we've all heard about mushrooms.   Stevia seems quite safe, though.  There was one study done in 1985 using really poor techniques that claimed stevia was unsafe.  The techniques were SO poor, however, that the same methods would have proven water to be unsafe.   have your sister try it.  and good luck!

I've never tried Stevia but with my taste buds the way they are I doubt that I would like it. It's weird. I can eat anything with sugar all day long but if you put it in liquid form it's disgusting to me. Aspartame is the only thing I like for sweetening my beverages.   For the record I always felt like Splenda was too good to be true. Sounds like it's worse than aspartame.